I Hate Everyone, Except You(9)

When she removed the cover letter and résumé, I could see that someone, probably Glenda, had written “CALL HER” at the top.

“You’re not a woman,” Michele said.

“People around here seem surprised by that. It’s starting to give me a complex. I mean I know I’m a little effeminate, but . . .”

“Just a little.” She smiled. “So, where are these story ideas?”

I had been carrying them around, not in a briefcase, but in a brand new manila folder, which was starting to look a little worse for wear. “Right here.” I passed them across her desk, feeling like a failure because the tab where I had written “Marie Claire” had become a little bent during my ride on the crosstown bus.

Michele picked up a ballpoint pen and read the list, making little check marks next to some ideas and slash marks through others, while I watched.

“Brilliant. Brilliant,” she mumbled, not lifting her eyes from the pages. “Did it. Not us. Not us . . .” She continued for a few minutes until she paused to make eye contact with me. “?‘How My Mole Made Me Whole’? What is that about?”

Oh, the terror. I had neglected to delete that one!

“Well, ummmm, I was thinking we could do a story on people who had moles and other skin conditions.”

“Really?” Michele asked.

“No. That one was a joke.”

She returned to the list. “Brilliant. Brilliant. Not us. Did it. Not us . . .” And after ten minutes, she counted the number of check marks. “Twenty-three,” she said.

Twenty-three was not a hundred. Was I being graded on a curve or on a straight percentage? “Is that good?” I asked.

“It’s twenty-three more ideas than I had when I walked in the door,” Michele said. I liked her. She was no-bullshit, but nice about it. “Are you looking for writing work?”

“Actually, I want a job as an editor.”

“I’ll keep you in mind,” she said. “Can you find your way out?”

I said I could.

The hairstylists were now putting the finishing touches on Glenda’s mane, which had been formed into a soft helmet surrounding her face. I walked past in my black suit and lavender shirt open at the collar. Take a look at what you missed out on, Glennnndah Bailey, Dasher of Dreams, in your fancy corner office. Look at me, I willed her. Look at me!

She didn’t.

I ended up being offered a job at Marie Claire as a contributing editor for a lot less money than I had hoped, but I accepted it anyway. Professionally, it may have been the most miserable year of my life. I shared a tiny office with three women, all of whom were very lovely, but we had zero privacy or personal space. I heard every word of their telephone conversations, and they every word of mine, work-related or not. We knew too much about one another: who had a doctor’s appointment, who had a date, who was fighting with their mother. I would drink gallons of water a day, just to have an excuse to leave my desk and pee in the usually empty men’s room.

By default I became the “What Do Men Think of Your _________?” editor, and so I’d have to produce a seemingly endless stream of stories filling in that blank. What do men think of your hair? Of your shoes? Of your bedroom? Of your complete inability to think for yourself?

Sometimes they ran in the magazine, sometimes not. That was the job: have twenty or so stories cooking on the back burner at any given time so that Glenda could pull one out randomly and tell you (via Michele) it was going to press tomorrow and demand to know why it wasn’t completely ready to go to press today.

I did end up producing “What Makes Me Different Makes Me Beautiful.” It took six months to convince Glenda (via Michele) that the story was a good idea. I found women willing to discuss the physical features they learned to embrace over time. While I was happy with the text, the finished spread didn’t come out exactly as I had hoped, thanks to the photo department. They ran a dramatic profile shot of the girl with supercurly hair, who also had a considerable nose, showcasing the fact that she had two prominent characteristics, not just one. The art was slightly confusing, but the editorial was crystal-clear. Nevertheless, Glenda held it up during the joyless monthly staff meeting. She said, in her nasal English accent, “I don’t understannnnd. Is this story about her hair or her nose?”

“It’s about her hair,” I said. “I’m not sure why art chose that particular image, because it does make her nose look huge, but in the piece she talks only about her hair.”

“Did you know she had a big nose when you cast her for the story?” Glenda asked.

“I had seen a photo of her. It didn’t look particularly large from the front.”

“Well, I think the story was a bit unsuccessful,” she said, and flipped to the next article.

I knew then I had to find a new job. I had assumed that working at a woman’s magazine would be more fun, that the real, live women working there would understand how trivial most of the topics we covered—celebrities, hair, sex, shoes, celebrities with hair having sex with shoes—were in the grand scheme of the Universe. But they didn’t. They took every aspect of the job incredibly seriously, as they should have. The women I worked with were smart. Really smart. I thought the overall vibe would be a little more “Wink-wink, nudge-nudge. We’re all just here to pay our rent, so let’s write silly stories about orgasms and lipstick.” But they were too professional for that.